From what I understand, you simply won't. Have any benefits from your BIS plan anymore. On my contract for example, I have 300MB/month included with an additional Blackberry option (BIS) enabled. So basicly I keep paying my 5 per month for BIS though I won't need or benefit from it anymore. Since that BIS option is bound to the contract, I can't simply unsubscribe it either.

So we end up having a useless thing we might even pay for, but won't have any benefits with BB10

The strange thing is if you look at the BlackBerry developer documentation, they tell you how to use push and how to apply to the company to submit a push app etc even for BB10. Since BlackBerry's push requires BIS, I think this will remain an option for some apps.

The strange thing is if you look at the BlackBerry developer documentation, they tell you how to use push and how to apply to the company to submit a push app etc even for BB10. Since BlackBerry's push requires BIS, I think this will remain an option for some apps.

BB10 devices being sold on contracts do not come with BIS as part of the plan nor an option to have it, there is no more BIS with BB10.

BB10 devices being sold on contracts do not come with BIS as part of the plan nor an option to have it, there is no more BIS with BB10.

O’Neill explained that the BB10 smartphones will not come bundled with BIS nor support it. The only service to run on BlackBerry’s infrastructure will be BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and some enterprise related applications.

The strange thing is if you look at the BlackBerry developer documentation, they tell you how to use push and how to apply to the company to submit a push app etc even for BB10. Since BlackBerry's push requires BIS, I think this will remain an option for some apps.

"Push" is a simplistic term that could mean many things. The main functional aspect is whether the system waits some unspecified amount of time before it checks for new messages and then you get notified of them eventually, or if you get new messages shortly after they were sent.

Blackberry became famous for "push" email back in the days when that was relatively uncommon, especially on a mobile device. Of course the enterprise BES server would support that feature, but that isn't practicable for individuals that aren't linked to their company email systems, or if their company isn't using BES.

POP3 based email retrieval, which has been around for about 25 yrs now, required periodic and continuous polling of the server to check for new messages, and the polling interval could be quite long in some cases, meaning it might take anywhere from 5-30 minutes or more before you would get a new message. With BIS, RIM would do the polling of the server on behalf of the user, the polling could occur as often as every 2-3 minutes if new messages had been recently detected, or as long as 15 minutes if the mailbox had been idle for some time. (Based on what someone wrote on the forums here recently. I'd looked at my own POP server and it seemed like RIM was hitting them every 2 minutes or so, but I didn't do extensive long-term testing on that)

When the RIM servers found a new message, it would send it immediately to the BB, which in many cases was faster than traditional POP3 polling, and didn't use battery power continuously powering-up the data radio to poll the POP server from the endpoint.

Nowadays most major email providers utilize more modern methods of email checking like IMAP (esp some of the newer extensions like "IDLE" and the "Lemonade" collection) and this requires far less idle data activity, for all practical purposes it is also "push", though the device does need to maintain an active IP socket and send a 'keepalive' packet every 30 mins or so to keep the connection alive.

The other major email checking/delivery mechanism is one of the Microsoft protocols, ie Exchange ActiveSync, which BB10 natively supports for the first time. (Used to be you had to use something like Good Technology or NotifyLink to get EAS on a Blackberry) EAS is effectively "push" as well and also has a variety of other features for syncing contacts/calendars/notes/etc. BB10 gives users the ability to select "push" as an option if their email server connection is based on either IMAP or EAS.

Curiously, today a Vodafone UK adviser (possibly working in Egypt) told me I would have to have a Blackberry plan with an OS10 phone. I believe he was wrong, but I'm still not certain. Who has the truth of this?

Im positive you don't need a BB plan because when I got the Z10 I switched to a new plan with a new carrier that wasn't specific to BB. I later returned my Z10 and reactivated my 9900 under the same plan and data no longer worked. I called the carrier and they just switched the same plan over to a BB one(koodo) and it worked fine. FYI the Koodo BB plan is the same price as the regular plan(that was a pleasant surprise). Must be why they don't have BB plans listed on their website.

You don't need BIS. Tried BBM etc. and it worked Wifi only without sim card. Many people like myself leave it on because either they're tied into a contract or like myself like to use older devices once in a while.

If the Q10 does not use/need BIS then how will it handle syncing Google contacts/calendar?

There have been tons of threads here about that the past few weeks.

BIS is not necessary for syncing Google tasks/calendar. Those features are built in to BB10. However Google is removing the ability to use one particular form of syncing (Exchange ActiveSync) from some Google accounts - in particular the free accounts, especially if you create a new account going forward.

IF you are a paying Google customer, or if your free Google account has existed for a while already, that feature will still work at least until July.

I suggest you go into either the BBOS 10 or Z10 sections here and search on something like "Google sync".

Everything will still work but it will work just like Iphone/android data does. BBM will still use BIS but you don't need a specifin BIS plan. This is taken from all the research I have done and not an official answer.

Re: BIS and the Q10

Originally Posted by Casper TFG

I think you may have to start paying more. The BIS party is over!

BIS was not any cheaper than any other smartphone plan here in the USA. It was cheaper in some other countries for certain supported activities, ie the developing world, depending on carrier and plan. On the other hand, there are a lot annoying restrictions with BIS too.

I expect that the carriers were strongly pushing against BIS for BB10 because they will make more money without it. But if Blackberry doesn't work out some attractive plans with carriers for all the BB customers who stuck with the platform mostly because of cheap BIS plans, they will likely see a large number of those customers moving to ie a cheap Android device the next time they're in the market for a new phone.

Do you have a choice about using google sync or not? I don't want to give google anymore of my info than I have to.

Depends on what your objective is.

If you just want to make a backup of the device data in case it gets damaged or lost, the included Blackberry Link utility will do that, via either USB cable, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

If you want to sync/share PIM data with a desktop copy of Microsoft Outlook, Blackberry has stated that that feature is on the list to be added to Blackberry Link within the next several weeks.

If you want to have a mobile view/copy of your email, or email/contacts/calender/notes etc that stays in sync with your server and can also be synced to other devices simultaneously, there are many commercial providers of email or groupware services that you can use. If you want something free and don't want to use Google, another popular option is Outlook.com by Microsoft.

But my personal opinion is the $5-10/mo charge for a real commercial MS Exchange hosting service is well worth the price if you're living in one of the more developed countries. I don't recommend anyone keep critical data on a free service of any kind.

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